Admiral Kim Myung-soo, the nominee for the ROK Joint Chief of Staffs has claimed that South Korea needs to have nuclear submarine capabilities despite ROK-US nuclear agreement remains a political challenge to overcome.
www.navalnews.com
Put it here and not ROKN thread, as this is can create more geopolitical changes in the region. This is create question whether this is a trend of US allies demanding SSN capabilities as contagious factor from AUKUS?
Asside Big 5, only two countries now embarking on their SSN project. India and later on Brazil. Both can be considered as non US/Western allies, and more as independent powers. India SSN more beneficial from India experience on operating Russian SSN. While Brazil use their own reactor design, but with French assistance to integrate into submarine.
RoK has good tech capabilities as civilian reactor producer. So does Japan. Will Japan going to follow through on their own SSN if ROK done this? Both of them definitely has their own capabilities as mature nuclear energy players, with their own nuclear industry. This will remain to political will and US compromise.
How this going to be seen by DPRK and China, remain to be seen. DPRK I suspect will not be please if ROK decide to go more open toward nuclear tech in military purpose. This is only propulsion, but it is potentially going to be seen by some further step to arming themselves with nuclear warheads. Either way, both ROK and Japan have tech to do it, should they choose.